It was Australia’s climate election. But not in the way many expected.

It took Tony Abbott, the architect of a decade of climate agony for Australian progressives, to boil a catastrophic defeat for Labor down to a trademark slogan.

“Where climate change is a moral issue,” the former prime minister and Liberal MP said on Saturday night, “we do it tough. But where climate change is an economic issue, as the result tonight shows, we do it very, very well.”

Abbott was, in fact, giving a concession speech. He’d just been thrashed by an independent who made his climate denial the defining issue for voters in the affluent Sydney seat he’d held for 25 years.

But away from the lilly pilly-lined streets of northern Sydney, Australians were emphatically rejecting the fullest climate offering from a major party in years.

It was Australia’s climate election. But not in the way many expected.

It took Tony Abbott, the architect of a decade of climate agony for Australian progressives, to boil a catastrophic defeat for Labor down to a trademark slogan.

“Where climate change is a moral issue,” the former prime minister and Liberal MP said on Saturday night, “we do it tough. But where climate change is an economic issue, as the result tonight shows, we do it very, very well.”

Abbott was, in fact, giving a concession speech. He’d just been thrashed by an independent who made his climate denial the defining issue for voters in the affluent Sydney seat he’d held for 25 years.

But away from the lilly pilly-lined streets of northern Sydney, Australians were emphatically rejecting the fullest climate offering from a major party in years.